A Good Fry

From a newsletter by Steve Wunderlink

One of our kids, when only a toddler, would face a particularly bad day by coming up to my wife or I and saying: “I have to go fry.” Then he would go into our basement and sit on the rocking horse and “fry” or cry as he fiercely rocked back and forth. After ten or fifteen minutes he would come back up again as good as new. He just needed a good “fry.”

I enjoy an evening alone every now and again, especially after a busy day of meetings, running around, and/or hard physical work. I have the lights down low, the TV on, and I sit in my favorite, overstuffed chair and I cry. I keep the Kleenex close by and mostly sob quietly or even, sometimes, out loud. So now it’s out, you know my secret. I don’t cry for any specific reason, most of the time it is a result of a particular TV show or movie that I watch, but I enjoy a good cry.

Last Sunday night I watched a cable documentary called “The Boy without any skin” or something like that and I cried. Then came on “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and I cried some more. This past week I watched the third of the Lord of the Rings movies and cried there too. I cry when Bruce Willis says goodbye to his movie daughter Liv Tyler in Armageddon. I go to movies with my wife and she will often move to a different seat as I sob alone. I cry easy and I cry often.

I think it is kind of a release for me. Some people use anger to release pressure and stress. Some people talk and talk and talk …. Some people will go to the gym to release it. Some people leave it bottled up inside until it breaks out like blemishes on a teenage face. I cry. This has been a new revelation for me lately and that is probably why I am writing it now. When the day is that kind of a day, you know what I mean, THAT kind of a day; what do you do to release that pressure and stress valve?

I just have a good fry.